A review by pollyno9
Black Magic Woman by Justin Gustainis
4.0
This review is for the series as a whole.
There are high point and low points for these books.
The high:
Good action writing. The action scenes in these books are paced just right. It doesn't move so fast that I feel like my reading can't keep up, but they don't drag on and on either. The characters do their things, and even though one is actively engaged in the fighting and one is not (speaking of the two main characters) you know that each is vital and what they're doing in presented in an interesting way.
The sexy parts hit the right tone. There are sexy parts in all these books, but they aren't graphic, and generally they do build the scenery well. If some of the sexy parts are gratuitous, and somewhat out of character they are, at least, brief
The pacing matches the timing. When things are heating up, the pacing gets a bit rushed, but the story feels like it moves along under its own steam, rather than being hurried along to get to the next interlude.
The low:
If you want a series that deals exclusively with demons and witches, this series is for you. Each book is a fight between good witches and bad witches, and the bad witches are super into murdering children and demonic sexytimes.
Can something be slightly sexist? Is that quantifiable? Because I'd say these books are slightly sexist. Women in these books are usually good at their tasks, confident and pretty powerful, yet it just feels off. Women are getting apologized to when someone swears, the heroines are all beautiful (the villainous women are a mixed bag), there is a sense of rescue happening in quite a few instances.
The word "podner" is used. Not even sure how this is correctly pronounced, my inner voice tripped over it every time. Not to mention, the two main characters are so witty that sometimes you could tell the author included some witticism just because he thought it was clever. Non sequiturs are pretty common in the dialogue, and none of the secondary characters bother to comment, which left me rolling me eyes in at least one occasion.
Over all, I give this series a low 3 stars. I'll keep reading them, and probably even binge reading them if I happen to have more than one on hand at any given time, but I won't go out of my way to share these with others.
There are high point and low points for these books.
The high:
Good action writing. The action scenes in these books are paced just right. It doesn't move so fast that I feel like my reading can't keep up, but they don't drag on and on either. The characters do their things, and even though one is actively engaged in the fighting and one is not (speaking of the two main characters) you know that each is vital and what they're doing in presented in an interesting way.
The sexy parts hit the right tone. There are sexy parts in all these books, but they aren't graphic, and generally they do build the scenery well. If some of the sexy parts are gratuitous, and somewhat out of character they are, at least, brief
The pacing matches the timing. When things are heating up, the pacing gets a bit rushed, but the story feels like it moves along under its own steam, rather than being hurried along to get to the next interlude.
The low:
If you want a series that deals exclusively with demons and witches, this series is for you. Each book is a fight between good witches and bad witches, and the bad witches are super into murdering children and demonic sexytimes.
Can something be slightly sexist? Is that quantifiable? Because I'd say these books are slightly sexist. Women in these books are usually good at their tasks, confident and pretty powerful, yet it just feels off. Women are getting apologized to when someone swears, the heroines are all beautiful (the villainous women are a mixed bag), there is a sense of rescue happening in quite a few instances.
The word "podner" is used. Not even sure how this is correctly pronounced, my inner voice tripped over it every time. Not to mention, the two main characters are so witty that sometimes you could tell the author included some witticism just because he thought it was clever. Non sequiturs are pretty common in the dialogue, and none of the secondary characters bother to comment, which left me rolling me eyes in at least one occasion.
Over all, I give this series a low 3 stars. I'll keep reading them, and probably even binge reading them if I happen to have more than one on hand at any given time, but I won't go out of my way to share these with others.